Opinion: Careening Toward the Cliff

Columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady on the fiscal cliff negotiations and how much Republicans should compromise to get a deal. Photo: Associated Press

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... that oral board member ... Mary O'Grady to talk about the fiscal ... cliff negotiations going on right now all Americans this and ... so the Pres Obama ran for reelection on raising taxes on ... high income individuals to ... at his press conference after the election he even said ... more people agreed with me on this than voted for me and ... doesn't have all something of a mandate to carry the summer ... while isn't surprising that a large percentage of people one or raise taxes on somebody else I should go out and he he I think we should remember that we don't win in a dictatorship or even the monarchy can only do have three branches of government ... and one that I know that the Republican in the house is controlled by Republicans so I'm ... if you look at the popular vote and if you look at the fact that the Republicans when the house I would say that there is a strong argument there that there should be a compromise okay so none of the status quo ... election essentially ... for for both branches executive mansion legislative branch ... um ... the president says that's the simple arithmetic ... not calculus we need more revenue ... the of the Proms of this man ... now ... on okay fine it's simple arithmetic ... let's look of the fact that if he raises taxes ... on households and nine and it shows that households making two hundred fifty thousand dollars to work for individuals making two hundred thousand dollars to more fees by the way are millionaires and billionaires ... um if we get if he manages to do that and raises the capital gains and ... I'm dividend taxes ... he will on that ... presumably get something like one point six trillion dollars over decades very hard to gauge that because you don't know what economic activity will too but that goes against answered Ader ten trillion dollars ... in deficits so then I think he's talking about arithmetic Mary ... it doesn't add up you can do that tax increases he wants and you really don't get anywhere in terms of the big prom we have a spending more than we take and ... what about the impact of raising taxes on economic growth which of course has been very slow ... in recent years aam because when the audience out there that the millionaires and billionaires can afford to pay ... a few extra percentage points but how all these that ... keep all of these increases impact ... other individuals ... why I think that's me you know what you're getting on there is that if he raises taxes on Warren Buffett who took a one off it's probably not can feel the tax increase that he's talking about ... but if you raise a non someone making two hundred thousand dollars a year or a household that has a couple that each make a hundred twenty five thousand dollars the year ... his millionaires in learning is on if you if you manage to do that ... on ... it and what you end up doing is discouraging economic activity and risk taking because many of these people are small business owner and they are Jobs creators and if they decide OK these taxes are so high that I don't have the discretionary income to take on a new ... employee or something that would be detrimental to the larger objective which is to get the economy now ... is there a political risk though the GOP again given the supple a collection of comedown ... in our ... not not compromising enough because Obama seems perfectly willing and able ... to go over that cliff and simply blame ... plainly outcomes ... well I mean they were fun and Congress have a key problem which is a structural problem ... I in the sense that the president has the bully pulpit uni don't have the Republicans on TV every night the way you have the president ... but um I do think that one of the mistakes they make you re now is to spend so much time arguing about whether taxes will go up on these people are away deductions will be cut what a fun and when we have to deal in which you can see by looking at the numbers I just gave you is me how to cut the size of the federal government ... and there's not enough talked about the spending cuts in the past we've had tax increases ... Democrats and always send AAPL morning the debut of spending cuts ... and there in the later on and they never happened and this is why we continued to run behind getting government has to be in this country and ... that he has to show some serious I'm attention and I'm ... I'm acceptance of the fact that it's too big and not just discretionary spending but also the entitlement state has to be caught